In other news, a Philly firm boosts website traffic, Acuiti focuses on asset management experts, and TransFICC has a NYC debut.
Aladdin & LTX Users Get Cross-Platform Access
BlackRock’s Aladdin platform has a new channel to liquidity via its integration with the Liquidity Cloud offering from LTX, a subsidiary of Broadridge Financial Solutions, and the link helps common clients of LTX and Aladdin to access trading functions of both platforms, officials report.
LTX is a division of Broadridge Business Process Outsourcing LLC, the broker-dealer subsidiary of Broadridge, a securities operations systems, services, and software solutions provider.
“The Liquidity Cloud is LTX’s network of anonymous real-time, buy- and sell-side indications of interest. Proprietary analysis in the Liquidity Cloud identifies Cloud Matches, real-time indications of natural contra interest in the Liquidity Cloud, the strength of which are measured by Cloud Match Scores. Cloud Match Scores update dynamically to reflect real-time available natural liquidity,” according to Broadridge.
This integration effort is part of a strategic partnership between BlackRock Aladdin and LTX and will help “common clients to view Cloud Match Scores directly within the Aladdin application OEMS [order/execution management system] and directly interact with trading opportunities in the Liquidity Cloud without a staging area,” officials say. Aladdin users can “contribute their anonymous interests to the Liquidity Cloud and, in turn, identify natural contra liquidity. The first phase, released in early 2022, enabled common clients to stage orders on the LTX platform through a standard FIX integration.”
“Some of the world’s largest institutional investors use Aladdin for their end-to-end trading workflows, and we are pleased that this integration enables common clients of LTX and Aladdin to seamlessly access trading functionalities of both platforms,” says Jim Kwiatkowski, CEO of LTX, in a prepared statement.
“We are committed to facilitating positive transformation in the corporate bond market with data-driven pre-trade intelligence and liquidity aggregation; this integration offers these advancements within existing buy-side workflows,” Kwiatkowski adds.
“We look forward to empowering our users with innovative pre-trade liquidity discovery capabilities and trading solutions like LTX for more seamless and efficient corporate bond trading workflows,” says Kamya Somasundaram, a managing director, and general manager within Aladdin at BlackRock, in a prepared statement.
Philly Firm Boosts Website Traffic via ‘Hearsay Sites’
Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, a Philadelphia-based wealth management, capital markets, and asset management firm, has deployed the Hearsay Sites offering from Hearsay Systems, and boosted traffic to its website by 30 percent, officials say.
“Janney is showcasing a more modern, sophisticated design, with enhanced capabilities and several new features — all with the goal of improving individual site level customization, while maintaining necessary compliance and archiving workflows,” according to Hearsay System officials.
“The enhanced websites prioritize advisor team photos and contact information (including compliant text messaging) and allow for the display of industry and local accolades, as well as Janney’s virtual client event series,” officials add.
The deployment has “netted impressive early results” during its first full quarter for Janney. “Comparing sites traffic Q1 2023 versus Q1 2022, site visitors, sessions, and pageviews were all up over 30 percent. Pageviews per session were up 2 percent and the bounce rate was down 3 percent,” according to Janney and Hearsay officials.
“Site traffic from social channels increased by 7 percent. Additionally, Janney’s organic search visitors were up 19 percent as a result of the improved SEO [search engine optimization] structure,” officials add.
“Our goal was to help our financial advisors and their teams to stand out amongst their peers through their customized, flexible, and easy-to-update websites,” says Chris Johnson, vice president for advisor marketing and communications at Janney, in a prepared statement.
“By working closely with Hearsay and our internal design team, and soliciting advisor feedback, we were able to provide an effective solution that solves for the unique asks of our 900 advisors,” Johnson says.
The Hearsay Sites offering “was designed to provide financial advisors with their own easily discoverable and differentiated web presence. Not only can Sites engage prospects and customers with educational content, it can also promote webinars and in-person events, collecting RSVPs and leads directly from advisor websites. Completed lead forms automatically trigger a text message to the advisor, streamlining their follow-up and accelerating lead conversion,” according to the vendor.
Janney has also deployed Hearsay Social and Hearsay Relate, which are compliant digital engagement solutions that help financial advisors use social media, text messaging, and websites to engage prospects and customers, officials say.
Janney is an independently operated subsidiary of The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company and is a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and Securities Investor Protection Corp. (SIPC), officials say.
Acuiti Focuses on Asset Manager Experts in Derivatives Markets
Acuiti, the maker of a management intelligence platform for senior industry professionals in the derivatives industry, has launched its Asset Management Expert Network, described as “the latest in its series of networks of senior executives focused on the global derivatives markets,” officials say.
Acuiti Expert Networks offers “a virtual forum through which senior executives can gauge sentiment and benchmark approaches to common challenges,” officials say. “Each quarter, members of the network have the opportunity to pose questions anonymously to their peers. These questions are then sent to the network and aggregated in a quarterly report, which provides an analysis of attitudes and approaches to the challenges that network is facing at that time.”
The Asset Management Expert Network of “senior derivatives-focused asset management executives at firms from across the globe” contributed to the first quarterly report, which “covers barriers to growth, headcount, approaches to key regulatory reforms facing the market today and how asset managers view the landscape for third-party technology provision,” according to Acuiti.
The key findings of the report are:
- “Asset management executives see the greatest opportunities in new trading strategies and investment in technology;
• Cost bases are the main challenge that network members are dealing with;
• Active account proposals in EMIR 3.0 are already having an effect on firms’ euro swap holdings, with over a third moving a portion of their books to an EU CCP;
• Network members are divided on T+1 settlement, with some fearing it will cause operational complications; and
• Tokenization is seen as a promising collateral management tool, but many still perceive it as an immature solution.”
“After a challenging 2022 and first half of 2023, asset managers have continued to grapple with the unpredictable market conditions caused by rising interest rates,” says Ross Lancaster, head of research at Acuiti. “These shifts have led to reviews of asset allocation and trading strategies, as well as an increased focus on risk and collateral management. As many asset managers look to change how they position in markets, there is also a need for investment to support the systems needed to put this into place as efficiently as possible.”
The full report is available here: https://bit.ly/46UZ06X
Acuiti aims its services at banks, non-bank FCMs, brokers, proprietary trading firms, hedge funds and asset managers.
TransFICC Launches Office in NYC
TransFICC, a London-based specialist provider of low-latency connectivity and workflow services for fixed income and derivatives markets, has opened an office in New York City, staffed by recent hires for sales and pre-sales efforts, officials say.
“With six North American clients and a presence in the New York and Chicago data centers, it is important for TransFICC to have a US office,” says Steve Toland, co-founder of TransFICC, in a prepared statement.
The TransFICC technology is intended to improve “access and automation in fixed income, resolving the issue of market fragmentation and delivering workflow efficiencies to banks and asset managers globally,” vendor officials say. “It provides connectivity to multiple trading venues while supporting a variety of workflows across asset classes such as rates and credit bonds, repos, mortgage backed securities and interest rate swaps.
Launched in 2016, TransFICC services include: One API for eTrading, Data Centers, Consolidated Tape and eTrading — all targeting workflow efficiency, low latency, scalable and secure connectivity for banks and the buy-side, officials say.
The new hires are:
- Sean Murphy, who joined as a senior sales executive to lead North American new business. Murphy was part of the management team that launched BrokerTec into the U.S. Treasury marketplace;
- Bo-Yun Liu who joined as a pre-sales engineer to lead client architecture solutions globally. Liu is an ex-US rates trader with over a decade of experience in fixed income markets serving in trading, technology, and product management roles;
- And Khagay Nagdimov who joined as a pre-sales engineer. Nagdimov, who has a software engineering background, started his career at TD Securities building software for fixed income teams.
